Time For Him to Leave: David Carradine Found Dead in Thai Hotel Room

Actor David Carradine, 72, was found hanged in a Thai hotel room. Suicide is suspected but disputed by Carradine's spokesperson.

The title character in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies and a standout in such B-level treats as Death Race 2000, Carradine is probably still best known for his role in the early '70s TV show, Kung Fu, which followed the travails of a wandering Chinese martial arts expert in the Old West and helped funkify and freakify American culture in all sorts of kitschy yet meaningful ways.

Having the Caucasian scion of a great American acting family playing a dispossessed Chinaman was weird enough, but the show itself was a relentless rotoscope of mystic Orient cliches that never stinted on displaying the (historically accurate) odious racism of prior generations of Americans. Somehow those lessons emanating from the backlots of the San Fernando Valley in the late 20th century seemed way too cheaply learned (especially from a Hollywood that continued to be leery of casting actual Asians in any but supporting roles), but the show absolutely helped broaden our cultural palate in all sorts of ways.

Here's Kung Fu's memorable pebble-snatching, cauldron-lifting opening sequence, which will doubtless take many readers way, way back to a very different time and place—and one that in its own small way helped make today's vastly more globalized and cosmopolitan America possible. Rest in peace, Kwai Chang Caine, rest in peace.

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I used to watch Kung Fu without fail, every week during its original run on ABC, along with about a jillion other fans of high-school age. While the casting of Carradine raised eyebrows then, and elicits eye-rolling from the likes of Gillespie now, it was important to the series that Caine be neither American nor Chinese, but a half-breed, a man between worlds. Carradine expressed the dualism well.

If, during one of those old episodes, one of my buddies would have offhandedly said, “y’know, when that guy is in his seventies, they’ll probably find him swinging from a rope in a Bangkok hotel room,” I would have demanded that he share his stash with the rest of us and quit holding out.

“Caine” seemed too centered to commit suicide; “Bill” seemed just too damned mean and selfish. And in real life, Carradine’s manager expressed great shock at this news, as being inconsistent with the actor’s true character and current attitude.

So I wonder what we will learn about this event in the days ahead. Regardless, I echo Gillespie, here: Rest in peace, grasshopper.

Culturally, Nick is right. Kung Fu has had much more influence than say, Cheers, Friends, Frazier, Seinfeld, Everybody Hates Ray and the entirety of reality tv, combined. Yes, that includes Survivor and Idol-really, they are a mere pimple on the penis of a protozoa in the universe of american culture.

What I liked about Kung Fu were the flashback scenes, where Master Po (or one of the other masters) would screw with Caine. My favorite part was how he’d tell Caine “You can leave this place when you can snatch this pebble from my hand. Oh, and when you can walk on this rice paper without leaving a trace. Did I say you could leave? No, you have to dodge all these spears. No, no, one more thing. Pick up this blazing hot cauldron with your forearms.”

Now, if the question was: So which shit-stain H&R troll is most likely to be found “dead in a Bankok hotel room, naked and hanging in his closet”? I’d have to go with Lonewacko ’cause we already know he practices autoerotic asphyxiation when he pleasures himself with a silicone burrito while choking back the tears.

It’s an interesting chicken and egg problem. Did Thailand become sex tourism hot spot because the cities have dirty names or did the sex tourism drive all the cities to be branded with sexual connotations?

But the other parts are real.

That’s not what Epi said the last time he “accidentally” wound up with a lady-boy.

JUNE 5–As investigators try to determine how actor David Carradine wound up hanging naked and dead in a Bangkok hotel closet with a rope tied around his genitals, a review of divorce court filings shows that his most recent ex-wife once accused the actor of “deviant sexual behavior which was potentially deadly.” …

… A Bangkok police official told reporters that investigators were examining whether Carradine accidentally suffocated while engaging in an autoerotic sex act.

Having the Caucasian scion of a great American acting family playing a dispossessed Chinaman was weird enough, but the show itself was a relentless rotoscope of mystic Orient cliches that never stinted on displaying the (historically accurate) odious racism of prior generations of Americans.

Yeah, but it wasn’t like Kwai Chang didn’t engage in a little trolling. I remember one episode where he walks into a bar, sits down next to two drunken cowpokes, and meekly asks the bartender if he can have a bowl of rice. Surprisingly, a fight ensues.

“””… A Bangkok police official told reporters that investigators were examining whether Carradine accidentally suffocated while engaging in an autoerotic sex act.”””

I’d believe that before I’d believe suicide. He was there filming a movie, his career wasn’t down the drain. I was leaning towards two possible reasons, murder, or the above, and I was leaning toward the above.

“””watching this as a kid, I could never figure out – he’s white, right? is he supposed to be oriental? How did this white guy get involved with these monks? They never explained it.”””

I thought they did. He was orphaned while his parents were in the country and the monks adopted him. No?

“””watching this as a kid, I could never figure out – he’s white, right? is he supposed to be oriental? How did this white guy get involved with these monks? They never explained it.”””

I thought they did. He was orphaned while his parents were in the country and the monks adopted him. No?

Something like that. I remember seeing the original tv movie pilot. In it he is the son of an American sea captain and a Chinese woman. I don’t remember whether he was illegitimate or not. But his mother died and his father was gone away on a voyage and, I believe, did not know he had a son. So anyway he was living on the streets as an orphan with the other urchins and decided to try joining the order of Shaolin monks. At first they would not have him, but his persistence, patience, and manners eventually convinced them to take him in. The pilot was better than the series.

Wait, you missed the whole part where he murdered the prince of China or something like that, which is why he had to flee the country.

No, I didn’t miss that – I just didn’t mention it. That incident occured later in the storyline after Caine had passed all the rituals of becoming a priest. Caine had accompanied his friend, the old blind monk (Master Po?) on the latter’s pilgrimage to the Forbidden City. While there the old one got into an altercation with the prince’s body guards over not showing deference to the prince. After the monk defeated the body guards the prince pulled out a pistol and shot the old man. Caine grabbed a spear of some sort and threw it into the prince’s chest in a fit of anger and revenge, thereby disgracing himself and the order and greatly disappointing his teachers. With his dying breath the old monk told him his life would be forfeit and that he must flee the country (or words to that effect.)